Forest Park revels in its history future

*Forest Park revels in its history, tuture"Neighborhoods," a Birmingham Post-Herald feature reporting on the city's diverse community life, appears periodically.By Mitch MendelsonPost-Herald ReporterAlton B. Parker Jr. says he has a T-shirt that reads, "Forest Park is close to my heart."Forest Park is close to the hearts and minds of many of its estimated 2,500 residents.Cathy McDaniel of 41st Street South calls it a neighborhood of "sidewalks, old trees and people getting out and meeting each other."Not a bad endorsement in an age of suburban tract developments, saplings held up by ropes and people who don't know their neighbors' names.Edward S. LaMonte, also a Forest Park resident, says "As urban neighborhoods go, this is a very fortunate and delightful one."Many of Birmingham's affluent and professional people have moved to the suburbs yet Forest Park draws people with money, brains and talent. "Before the housing finance market dried up, a house (in Forest Park) wouldn't stay on the market for a week," Parker said.Blaine A. Brownell III, another neighborhood resident, said his neighbors feel "it is the best place in Birmingham to live .... They feel a bit sorry for people who either didn't know about Forest Park ... or didn't have the opportunity to live there .... They perceive themselves as people who have not fallen for tired notions of getting out of the city."The elements of any neighborhood —housing stock, vegetation, topography, accessibility, amenities, demographics — combine in Forest Park to produce an unusual and highly successful area. The housing ranges from typical Birmingham bungalows (one-story, single-family wood frame with twin-columned front porch) to baronial mansions, from Federal architecture to modern, from rolling lawns to postage-stamp yards.And the contrasts are striking: it is not unusual for a low-slung, working-class housecomplete with iron-spike fence, carport and carriage house. Some of the grander homes were built by Birmingham's leading early20th-century architects such as Charles McCauley and the firm of Warren, Knight and Davis. The styles include Greek Revival, Tudor, Georgian, Federal and what historians euphemistically call "eclectic," a collection of designs with no dominant style.Exteriors include brick, stucco, wood siding, wood shingles and asphalt shingles. Roofs range from slate to terra cotta to shingle. Stone porches, brick porches, screened porches, expansive porticos and brick-walled gardens, landscaped gardens and front yards au naturel.Houses in need of work, houses being worked on, houses in great shape. Commonly-asked curbside and cocktail party questions: "What are you doing to yours? What workman are you using? Do you know a good roofer?"And the trees: Linden brought from Europe, sycamore, oak, hackberry, poplar — grand and stately trees giving the neighborhood a strong aura of rootedness. Moss-and ivy-covered stone and brick walls also help the feeling of permanence. "Somebody once said that Forest Park is what all those folks in Riverchase aspire to be 50 years from now," Brownell said.The land contours flow gently upward from Jones Valley, rising more steeply near the crest of Red Mountain. The early developers of Forest Park built along the lay of the land.Ask a Forest Park resident what he likes about his neighborhood and he'll certainly mention accessibility. It is four miles from the Zero Mile Marker in Woodrow Wilson Park to the Forest Park historic marker at Clairmont Avenue and Essex Road, a trip that takes 11 minutes in moderate traffic. Folks here shake their heads at their suburban brethren sitting in freeway traffic.Amenities include Avondale Park and Boswell Golf Course, which border Forest Park on the north and west, as well as Highland Park, Avondale School, several private schools and the neighborhoods's own commercial area on Clairmont Avenue that includes a local grocery and drugstore. The little business district, with its famiIy-- owned stores and shopkeepers who know their customers, "is the closest thing to the way it used to be," Brownell said.But more than a collection of dwellings and streets, a neighborhood's character comes from who lives there. Forest Park boasts a diverse group of professionals, college faculty members, artists and civic leaders. Its roster reads like a who's who of modern-day movers and shakers, including former mayors George G. Seibels Jr. and David J. Vann, school superintendent Wilmer S. Cody, school board member Belle Stoddard, former City Council member Angi G. Proctor LaMonte is Mayor Richard Arrington's executive secretary, Parker is a former school board member, and their neighbors include numerous other members of various boards and agencies. 'The neighborhood "produces more than its share of leadership," LaMonte said.Its population is almost entirely white butresidents say that is unintentional. "I don't believe this is a neighborhood that excludes others," LaMonte said, and many are fiercely proud of sending their children to integrated city schools. Tradition and economics likely pose greater barriers to other races and classes than the attitudes of residents.Tradition and history also have a lot to do with Forest Park's strength and stability. It was well-planned and built by some of the city's most notable developers. Robert Jemison Jr. began developing the area as Mountain Terrace in 1906 and New York landscape architect Samuel Parsons Jr: designed the park theme used by Jemison and the Birmingham Realty Co. Jemison would later go on to develop parts of Mountain Brook.See FOREST PARK, page C6Forest Parkfrom page C1According to Catherine Browne. chairman of the Forest Park Historic Committee, most of the houses were built between 1900 and 1928. In the first quarter of the 20th Century, "it was THE place to live. The big names in Birmingham were the ones who lived here. They all built houses in Forest Park."Through the Great Depression and World WarForest Park remained relatively stable but the neighborhood began to decline in the 1950s. Mrs. Browne said. "The houses were large and the trend was to build ranch houses (in suburbia) and move. Some people sold out to real estate developers who leveled the houses and built apartments."In the late 1960s, as the post-war baby boom children started families and historic preservation became a national trend, young couples began moving into Forest Park. "People were fighting to get into this neighborhood." she said.With the growth of the University of Alabama Birmingham and the city's shift to a professional economy. Forest Park has become even more desirable. And some of the residents are children and grandchildren of former Forest Park people who moved to the suburbs. While young suburbanites often say their parents still live in Woodlawn or East Like. it is not unusual to find a Forest Park resident who says his parents live in Hoover or Vestavia Hills.Two other factors drew the community together and gave it a strong neighborhood spirit. In the early 1970s, highway planners designed a freeway from the eastern area of Birmingham through Forest Park. "We said: 'No, by golly, they're not going to put a freeway through Forest Park."' Mrs. Browne said."There is a sense of community in Forest Park that was brought to the fore by the threat of the airport expressway. The neighborhood association was formed ... and it fought that expressway off the drawing boards." said Neighborhood President Samuel H. Frazier.And the movement to make For-est Park a National Historic District drew the neighborhood together again. Residents surveyed 626 structures, nearly all of them homes. and prepared histories. photographs, maps and other supporting data that culminated in the 1980 listing of the neighborhood on the National Register of Historic Places. In addition to placing a feather in Forest Park's cap. the National Register offers some protection against incompatible redevelopment and provides tax incentives for restoration.The neighborhood also encompasses areas outside the historic district, including the eastern edge of Forest Park, the northside around Avondale Park and the western end along Clairmont Avenue. These sections blend into the character of bordering neighborhoods, Avondale on the north. Crestwood on the east and Highland Park on the west.Creeping commercialism concerns Forest Park leaders who keep a close watch on zoning changes on the fringes of the historic area. Tracts between Forest Park and Avondale have become commercial and Southside-style garden apartments crowd the western end of Forest Park along Clairmont Road and Cliff Road."We have to stay vigilant about zoning." Frazier said. The sometimes abrupt changes from stately single-family houses to treeless multifamily apartments testify to the dramatic effects of zoning.Other local problems include house burglaries, kept down by a successful neighborhood watch program, mosquitoes and traffic which races along Clairmont Avenue. Mrs. Browne said two cars and a motorcycle have landed in her front yard in her 12 years in Forest Park.The neighborhood recognizes these flies in the community ointment as concomitants of urban living. Many residents moved here seeking the kind of city life unavailable to their Over-theMountain counterparts. and they nurture a kind of urban pride. "There is a difference betweenpeople who live in the city and people who live in the suburbs" said Mary Boehm of 41stSouth."If I'm going to come to a city. I can't see any reason not to live in the city and be a part of it," Frazier said.Brownell said most of the anti-suburban feeling is good-natured. During last January's ice storm. when some Over-the-Mountain areas were without power for up to a week, "we were a refugee center for people from Mountain Brook and Vestavia. We were welcoming all these friends and kinfolk back to civilization."But the attitude of "we're special and we're here" goes beyond joviality. "Sometimes local patriotism gets so strong people don't encourage relationships with other communities .... It's nice to perceive yourself as special but we should not perceive of ourselves as exclusive," Brownell said.Civic pride goes along with urban pride. "Birmingham is what made the suburbs. The city is in a position where it needs the support of the people who live in the city .... It's the hub of the wheel." said Chris Boehm of 41st Street South.Forest Park's civic pride is "partly a reaction against this idea that the city is going down the tubes. That obviously was the prevailing view of some of these people's parents and friends," Brownell said."There are people in this neighborhood who think the future of Birmingham is important to this area and you can't just hope that someone else takes care of Birmingham .... There's a sense that with opportunities somebody's got to pick up the obligations and become involved in the overall life of the city." LaMonte saidHorace E. Kirk, a 25-year Forest Park resident, sweeps drivewayBy Michael McMulianAn old ceremic street marker still directs traffic at Crescent Road

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*Forest Park revels in its history, tuture"Neighborhoods," a Birmingham Post-Herald feature reporting on the city's diverse community life, appears periodically.By Mitch MendelsonPost-Herald ReporterAlton B. Parker Jr. says he has a T-shirt that reads, "Forest Park is close to my heart."Forest Park is close to the hearts and minds of many of its estimated 2,500 residents.Cathy McDaniel of 41st Street South calls it a neighborhood of "sidewalks, old trees and people getting out and meeting each other."Not a bad endorsement in an age of suburban tract developments, saplings held up by ropes and people who don't know their neighbors' names.Edward S. LaMonte, also a Forest Park resident, says "As urban neighborhoods go, this is a very fortunate and delightful one."Many of Birmingham's affluent and professional people have moved to the suburbs yet Forest Park draws people with money, brains and talent. "Before the housing finance market dried up, a house (in Forest Park) wouldn't stay on the market for a week," Parker said.Blaine A. Brownell III, another neighborhood resident, said his neighbors feel "it is the best place in Birmingham to live .... They feel a bit sorry for people who either didn't know about Forest Park ... or didn't have the opportunity to live there .... They perceive themselves as people who have not fallen for tired notions of getting out of the city."The elements of any neighborhood —housing stock, vegetation, topography, accessibility, amenities, demographics — combine in Forest Park to produce an unusual and highly successful area. The housing ranges from typical Birmingham bungalows (one-story, single-family wood frame with twin-columned front porch) to baronial mansions, from Federal architecture to modern, from rolling lawns to postage-stamp yards.And the contrasts are striking: it is not unusual for a low-slung, working-class housecomplete with iron-spike fence, carport and carriage house. Some of the grander homes were built by Birmingham's leading early20th-century architects such as Charles McCauley and the firm of Warren, Knight and Davis. The styles include Greek Revival, Tudor, Georgian, Federal and what historians euphemistically call "eclectic," a collection of designs with no dominant style.Exteriors include brick, stucco, wood siding, wood shingles and asphalt shingles. Roofs range from slate to terra cotta to shingle. Stone porches, brick porches, screened porches, expansive porticos and brick-walled gardens, landscaped gardens and front yards au naturel.Houses in need of work, houses being worked on, houses in great shape. Commonly-asked curbside and cocktail party questions: "What are you doing to yours? What workman are you using? Do you know a good roofer?"And the trees: Linden brought from Europe, sycamore, oak, hackberry, poplar — grand and stately trees giving the neighborhood a strong aura of rootedness. Moss-and ivy-covered stone and brick walls also help the feeling of permanence. "Somebody once said that Forest Park is what all those folks in Riverchase aspire to be 50 years from now," Brownell said.The land contours flow gently upward from Jones Valley, rising more steeply near the crest of Red Mountain. The early developers of Forest Park built along the lay of the land.Ask a Forest Park resident what he likes about his neighborhood and he'll certainly mention accessibility. It is four miles from the Zero Mile Marker in Woodrow Wilson Park to the Forest Park historic marker at Clairmont Avenue and Essex Road, a trip that takes 11 minutes in moderate traffic. Folks here shake their heads at their suburban brethren sitting in freeway traffic.Amenities include Avondale Park and Boswell Golf Course, which border Forest Park on the north and west, as well as Highland Park, Avondale School, several private schools and the neighborhoods's own commercial area on Clairmont Avenue that includes a local grocery and drugstore. The little business district, with its famiIy-- owned stores and shopkeepers who know their customers, "is the closest thing to the way it used to be," Brownell said.But more than a collection of dwellings and streets, a neighborhood's character comes from who lives there. Forest Park boasts a diverse group of professionals, college faculty members, artists and civic leaders. Its roster reads like a who's who of modern-day movers and shakers, including former mayors George G. Seibels Jr. and David J. Vann, school superintendent Wilmer S. Cody, school board member Belle Stoddard, former City Council member Angi G. Proctor LaMonte is Mayor Richard Arrington's executive secretary, Parker is a former school board member, and their neighbors include numerous other members of various boards and agencies. 'The neighborhood "produces more than its share of leadership," LaMonte said.Its population is almost entirely white butresidents say that is unintentional. "I don't believe this is a neighborhood that excludes others," LaMonte said, and many are fiercely proud of sending their children to integrated city schools. Tradition and economics likely pose greater barriers to other races and classes than the attitudes of residents.Tradition and history also have a lot to do with Forest Park's strength and stability. It was well-planned and built by some of the city's most notable developers. Robert Jemison Jr. began developing the area as Mountain Terrace in 1906 and New York landscape architect Samuel Parsons Jr: designed the park theme used by Jemison and the Birmingham Realty Co. Jemison would later go on to develop parts of Mountain Brook.See FOREST PARK, page C6Forest Parkfrom page C1According to Catherine Browne. chairman of the Forest Park Historic Committee, most of the houses were built between 1900 and 1928. In the first quarter of the 20th Century, "it was THE place to live. The big names in Birmingham were the ones who lived here. They all built houses in Forest Park."Through the Great Depression and World WarForest Park remained relatively stable but the neighborhood began to decline in the 1950s. Mrs. Browne said. "The houses were large and the trend was to build ranch houses (in suburbia) and move. Some people sold out to real estate developers who leveled the houses and built apartments."In the late 1960s, as the post-war baby boom children started families and historic preservation became a national trend, young couples began moving into Forest Park. "People were fighting to get into this neighborhood." she said.With the growth of the University of Alabama Birmingham and the city's shift to a professional economy. Forest Park has become even more desirable. And some of the residents are children and grandchildren of former Forest Park people who moved to the suburbs. While young suburbanites often say their parents still live in Woodlawn or East Like. it is not unusual to find a Forest Park resident who says his parents live in Hoover or Vestavia Hills.Two other factors drew the community together and gave it a strong neighborhood spirit. In the early 1970s, highway planners designed a freeway from the eastern area of Birmingham through Forest Park. "We said: 'No, by golly, they're not going to put a freeway through Forest Park."' Mrs. Browne said."There is a sense of community in Forest Park that was brought to the fore by the threat of the airport expressway. The neighborhood association was formed ... and it fought that expressway off the drawing boards." said Neighborhood President Samuel H. Frazier.And the movement to make For-est Park a National Historic District drew the neighborhood together again. Residents surveyed 626 structures, nearly all of them homes. and prepared histories. photographs, maps and other supporting data that culminated in the 1980 listing of the neighborhood on the National Register of Historic Places. In addition to placing a feather in Forest Park's cap. the National Register offers some protection against incompatible redevelopment and provides tax incentives for restoration.The neighborhood also encompasses areas outside the historic district, including the eastern edge of Forest Park, the northside around Avondale Park and the western end along Clairmont Avenue. These sections blend into the character of bordering neighborhoods, Avondale on the north. Crestwood on the east and Highland Park on the west.Creeping commercialism concerns Forest Park leaders who keep a close watch on zoning changes on the fringes of the historic area. Tracts between Forest Park and Avondale have become commercial and Southside-style garden apartments crowd the western end of Forest Park along Clairmont Road and Cliff Road."We have to stay vigilant about zoning." Frazier said. The sometimes abrupt changes from stately single-family houses to treeless multifamily apartments testify to the dramatic effects of zoning.Other local problems include house burglaries, kept down by a successful neighborhood watch program, mosquitoes and traffic which races along Clairmont Avenue. Mrs. Browne said two cars and a motorcycle have landed in her front yard in her 12 years in Forest Park.The neighborhood recognizes these flies in the community ointment as concomitants of urban living. Many residents moved here seeking the kind of city life unavailable to their Over-theMountain counterparts. and they nurture a kind of urban pride. "There is a difference betweenpeople who live in the city and people who live in the suburbs" said Mary Boehm of 41stSouth."If I'm going to come to a city. I can't see any reason not to live in the city and be a part of it," Frazier said.Brownell said most of the anti-suburban feeling is good-natured. During last January's ice storm. when some Over-the-Mountain areas were without power for up to a week, "we were a refugee center for people from Mountain Brook and Vestavia. We were welcoming all these friends and kinfolk back to civilization."But the attitude of "we're special and we're here" goes beyond joviality. "Sometimes local patriotism gets so strong people don't encourage relationships with other communities .... It's nice to perceive yourself as special but we should not perceive of ourselves as exclusive," Brownell said.Civic pride goes along with urban pride. "Birmingham is what made the suburbs. The city is in a position where it needs the support of the people who live in the city .... It's the hub of the wheel." said Chris Boehm of 41st Street South.Forest Park's civic pride is "partly a reaction against this idea that the city is going down the tubes. That obviously was the prevailing view of some of these people's parents and friends," Brownell said."There are people in this neighborhood who think the future of Birmingham is important to this area and you can't just hope that someone else takes care of Birmingham .... There's a sense that with opportunities somebody's got to pick up the obligations and become involved in the overall life of the city." LaMonte saidHorace E. Kirk, a 25-year Forest Park resident, sweeps drivewayBy Michael McMulianAn old ceremic street marker still directs traffic at Crescent Road